The fediverse is small, and thats both a blessing and a curse - one of its several blessings is that in a smaller space we all individually have a bigger impact on what the culture of this space is like.

On this comm (and on lemmy broadly) there's a lot of discussion about how to grow the fediverse, what to improve, but an easy thing you can do for the fediverse is right in front of us-

Be kind
Ask people what they think, and why
Approach folks you disagree with with curiosity rather than hostility (EDIT: no, this is not specifically referring to Nazis. I get it, they're the first thing that comes to mind. I'm not telling you to approve of Nazis I'm just saying be kind to your fellow lemmites)
Engage sincerely
Ask yourself if there's something nice you can say
Make this small space worth being in

A platform lives or dies by what's available on said platform and often we have this conversation in the context of "content" or posts - and we may never have as much content as reddit does. But content and posts aren't the only thing this kind of platform offers- it also offers people. It offers community, and human interaction.

Culture and community is lemmy and the fediverse's biggest differentiator, and we all have a role to play in shaping the culture of this space.

The biggest thing you can do to help the fediverse is make it a place worth being.

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[+] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world -2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Personally I don't see calling people Russian bots/trolls or accepting harmful behaviour as the only available options.

I don't think the former is at all productive or helps anything, and the latter is completely unacceptable. But those aren't our only options when we decide how we want to engage with people we disagree with

and again, fascists are not the only people with whom disagreements happen on lemmy. We're literally disagreeing right now, if you called me a Russian bot I think that would be silly and unproductive. That's literally my whole point. Not everyone you disagree with is arguing in bad faith 🤷‍♂️

[+] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I'm very familiar with and agree with the Nazi bar metaphor, and said as much in one of my very first comments I made in the discussion under this post. At no point have I advocated letting Lemmy be a Nazi bar. And we don't exactly have many fascists here compared to other platforms, Lemmy is almost exclusively leftists.

Being kind to your fellow lemmites is not making this platform a Nazi safe haven, it just makes it a social space actually worth spending time in.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I think you’re wasting your breath at this point. This McCarthyite’s views aren’t going to move an inch, and virtually no one else is going to see this conversation, because this thread is buried under the fold and the post is a day old.

It doesn’t matter that first they came for the communists, or that no one has shed more blood fighting fascists than communists. “Authoritarian” communists are fascists, case closed.